Emissions from wetlands and permafrost impacts climate targets

Additional cuts to fossil fuel emissions are required to limit global warming due to greenhouse gases from wetlands and permafrost, according to new research.

A study has found that to limit the rise in global temperature levels to a maximum of 1.5 °C, fossil fuel emissions should be cut by an additional 20 per cent above previous estimations due to greenhouse gas emissions from wetlands and permafrost.

Scientists, including Dr Sarah Chadburn from the University of Leeds, have used climate models to estimate natural wetland and permafrost response to climate change – including the effects on their greenhouse gas emissions – and the implications for rates of human fossil-fuel emissions.

Their research, published in Nature Geoscience, shows that global rates of methane emissions from natural wetlands and the release of carbon from thawing permafrost increase as global temperatures rise. These emissions further increase global temperatures, resulting in even more greenhouse gas emissions.

The study highlights that global emissions from wetlands and permafrost are not represented in most state-of-the-art climate models.

The researchers estimate that when emissions from natural wetlands and permafrost emissions are considered, in order to limit temperatures to the lower target of 1.5 °C set by the 2015 Paris Agreement requires additional reductions equivalent to five to six years of carbon emissions from human activities at current rates.

Dr Chadburn from the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds said: “We found that permafrost and methane emissions get more important as we consider lower global warming targets. This could make it much harder to achieve the target, and our results reinforce the urgency in reducing fossil fuel burning.”

Natural wetlands are waterlogged regions where the soils emit the greenhouse gas methane. The methane emissions are larger in warmer soils, therefore rising climates would cause an increase in methane emissions.

In permafrost regions the soil is permanently frozen, trapping large quantities of carbon in frozen organic matter. Warming climates cause the permafrost soil to thaw and emit carbon dioxide, and in some cases methane, into the atmosphere.